Overall the build is very straightforward if you follow the instructions in the Guide.
Everything lined up perfectly and nothing needed to be bashed or fettled to get it to fit.
Machining quality is really superb.

All parts were present and correct in neat little bags and trays for easy identification.

I of course had to modify the design slightly so I made myself some extra work, but I got an even better unit for my needs/wants.

I have been looking to build a silent PC for quite a while and kept looking at Streacom passive cases but last time I searched for ideas I came across the HD-Plex site and found that these cases were much better and about the same price. More options for internals with a passive GPU option up to say Nvidea 950, a TDP of 95W for both CPU and GPU plus amazing design and build quality.

I was initially going to build around an i5 6600K Skylake but then MS decided to stop support for Skylake going forward with Win 8.1, so I went back to the drawing board and discovered that the i5 5675C was the same power consumption with better onboard graphics. I was starting with no GPU as I probably don’t need one at the moment.

This box will be used to run HQPlayer. Target OS is Windows 10. The M.2 SSD is a placeholder which will eventually be removed to make the box diskless, booting from a mounted iSCSI drive served by a silent NUC box acting as NAS and containing my music library.

I’m also waiting for an HDPLEX 300W ATX linear PSU to arrive, and will be able to compare the sound between the above PSU setup and the HDPLEX 300W ATX linear PSU.

New version of HDPLEX H1 series Fanless PC case has the following changes.

1：SSD installation position is being moved to the bottom plate below the motherboard. There is a “bathtub” being carved on the bottom plate for one SSD position or maybe two if it is super slim SSD (<7mm).
This change enable H1.SODD to support regular SSD and to allow better heat dissipation since nothing will block the aluminum top plate.
Old H1.SODD only supports mSATA/M.2 SSD.

2: CPU aluminum top plate will have teeth. Increase the heat dissipation area and thus efficiency.

3: Improve the backplate for Thin mini ITX PCI Expansion card installation. Due to the decrease of thin ITX mobo options, I might make this thin ITX blackplate an option instead of include it by default. There is no thin ITX board for Intel Boardwell nor for Skylake CPU. Did they give up on Thin ITX??

4: Side I/O board will be improved. One side I/O board with soft silicon based USB 3.0 cable and power button will replace the original two side I/O boards. So only one side will have side I/O. Silicon USB 3.0 head is very low profile as well.

5: New H1 faceplate will have new mounting pattern for power supply.
The mounting for 250W HiFi DC-ATX is unchanged.
In sum:

Searching the internet (in sites like SPCR) i’he found the components that match my desidered build:

– Case: Hd-Plex 5 second generation fanless case.
This case is stated to support up to 95 TDW CPU whit eight copper heat pipe cooling.
It is not the smallest case but can accept atx motherboard and has a lot of space to support
upgrades / new internal component.
It can accept a low power discrete card that can be passively cooled with
additional pipes.

– CPU: Intel I5 5675C.
It suits my needs because is a desktop class (not underpowered laptop) 65W TDP I5 and it
has an integrate Iris Pro 6200 gpu adeguate for my usage (at this time i don’t want a discre
gpu).

– HD: Samsung SSD EVO 850 500GB in M.2 format (sata,ahci)
I like the compact form M.2. The sata,ahci version is the “slower” type of M.2 but costs
less for GB then pcie,nvmi and is more than adequate for general purpose usage.

-MB: Asus Z97-P.
It as a Z97 chipset, M.2 socket and support 4K HDMI.

– OTHER : no need for other internal component (DVD , Hard Disk) because if needed i use
external usb version.

So i built the PC.

Below some pictures of the internals and external of the finished PC.

My impression of the main fanless components from HD-PLEX (case, cpu cooling and PSU) is good, they seems quality built.

New Plex H5 gen 2 server HTPC
I post here a fully silent HTPC assembled in the just released fantastic Plex H5 gen 2 case. It features: AS Rock Extreme 3 Mobo, 256 GO M.2 Gen 3 SSD, 16Go DDR4 3GHz RAM, i7-6700, ZOTAC GeForce GTX 950 AMP! Edition, 100W external linear PSU, USB Audio card V2 from PPA, Win 10 (with AO when it is ready, I might install as a double boot a Win Server 2012 R2JRiver MC21, Roon might come, as of now I find the price tag quite high for a non finished yet software), and a Synology DS1813+. It is dedicated to a 50m2 movie and audio theater room: Sony 4K projector, Request II Martin Logan speakers powered by an YBA power amplifier, YBA pre-amplifier, YBA CD reader, a Rel subwoofer. Center and back speakers are Martin Logan too. As for the DAC, I have a Micromega MYdac, and I am in the process of selecting either the Exasound gear or the Yggdrasil one. I’m in the process of the replacement of the receiver that will be Emotiva XMC-1.

The OS is installed on the M2 drive indeed. I haven’t made any test on SSD prior to that, I won’t enter into that kind of debate. The unit is not connected yet, it will take some time before it is done, hopefully during spring. So I’ll have to wait quite a bit to test it. It will be interesting to make A/B tests with my legacy high end CD player and the Goldmund T3. The 100W LPSU HDPLEX Fanless Linear Power Supply for PC Audio and CE device feeds an internal power supply and feeds as well the USB audio card. I could have used the 300W PSU in order to achieve a full linear PSU , this is a higher price tag though, I may go this route in the future. This company makes smaller case, you may have a look.

Indeed the 950 is cooled by two fans that have been removed. I did not have the opportunity yet to stress the 950.
As for the internal PSU: HDPLEX-250W-Hi-Fi-DC-ATX-Power-Supply (16V-24V Wide Range Voltage Input). This internal PSU is feed by HDPLEX Fanless Linear Power Supply for PC Audio and CE device. This 100W PSU feeds directly the USB PPA card as well

As a side information, the GPU temperature when playing a HD file is between 45/50°C

Hi, this is my first passive cooling case, i wanted a compromise between design, cpu-gpu power, dimensions, loudness and… money

Now i can say that hdplex h1.s has benn the right choice for me.
I was impressed by hdplex assistance (almost real time answers) and hardware quality, you will find everything you need for your build in the package of a h1.s.

Last winter I finally had enough of fan noise from my desktop computer and started to plan a fanless desktop build. I wanted a small form factor, Haswell architecture and the best possible integrated GPU.

The Akasa would have been the cheapest and also the smallest. But the combination of a ThinITX motherboard and a low maximum TDP limits the choice of possible components, which in turn can push the price up. The Streacom is the opposite; factoring in the price of the power supply it would have been around 20% more expensive than the Akasa and the largest of the three. In the end I chose the HDPLEX H1.S, in part because of promising early reviews and in part because a MiniITX motherboard I had on my list of compatible motherboards suddenly dropped substantially in price on Amazon.

I recycled two SSDs and memory from a previous build. All that was left was to pick a CPU. To the get the best GPU available with Haswell I would have had to choose an i5 or an i7, but I chose an i3-4330 as a balance between price and the optimal GPU.

The build took about four hours and, as expected, required patience and some creative cable management. I would not recommend this as a first-time build as you have to plan ahead and figure out exactly how to squeeze all the components in, and the instructions leave some important steps out. Photographs of the motherboard you plan to use are crucial. Keep an eye out in particular for conflicts between the heat pipes, power connectors and vertically mounted batteries. With my chosen motherboard the heat pipes leave only two of the SATA connectors in the clear and block the vertical mini-PCIe slot for the included Wifi and Bluetooth card.

There a plenty of pieces to keep track of.

The thick black cable is a double USB cable that had to be gently bent out of the way when the lid came on.

The mini-PCIe slot is obscured by the heat pipes on the left, as are the remaining SATA slots.

The fanless PSU is attached to the front panel.

The green coil had to be nudged a bit in order to plug the connector next to it.

The vertical plate holds the heat pipes in place, but the external power cable connector conflicts with one of the screws that attach it to the case and it cannot be moved further right without interfering with the heat pipes.

The complete build fills almost all available space.

The results are excellent. I have now had this system for almost a year and have been surprised by its stability and performance. Under light load the temperature hovers in the 35°C-40°C range. As I am writing this, the ambient temperature is 19°C and sensors reports the following:

I have not subjected the system to a stress test like Prime95 but I would not be surprised if the temperature approached the danger zone under such conditions. But the load that a stress test puts the system under is unlike anything it will experience with my usage pattern and it is not what I built the system for.

The only issue I have had is interference with mobile phones. If I place a mobile close to the case, the screen will go blank or fill with random noise. Something here is not shielded the way it should be. I have not looked into this and it may simply be caused by something like a cheap HDMI cable.